Were you in the "Gifted Program" ?

Originally posted by Roundtree
I'm sure many of you have heard of the gifted program, if not, it is a program set up basically to first identify "gifted" children, and then bring them all to different schools to learn different things, once a week. They took IQ tests, constantly gave us projects which were high complexity for 7-8 year olds, as well as other mentally challenging tests. The wierd thing was out of say 7-8 schools in the area, there were only 20 of us in the gifted program, called Odyssey in my region.

Was this an attempt to get the intelligent children on the books? find out who they are and watch them as they mature?

Also, how many of us ended up here? the gifted program taught us to reason, to ask why and how things happen, which is what this and other conspiracy sites are all about. Id advise you all to research star children, and compare the characteristics to the gifted program. I'm sure that we are in a record somewhere, identified as possible star children or something, what are your guys' thoughts?

I think there is something else that they use to determine who gets into it as well. When I was a child it was called gate and while I had an IQ in the 130's as and now test in the 150's, I was never chosen for gate.

I needed something like that too, because as I went along I became so bored with school that I wouldn't do any homework and eventually wouldn't try at all.

Jaden

Great post.

My 6 year old daughter missed the kindergarten program by one point and has been recommended for the program for 1st grade by her K teacher.

She has taken the abilities test and we are waiting to see if she made it in the program. I so hope she does, fact is she if she doesn't, I don't know what I am going to do, as she is far ahead of all of her classmates and gets bored with school very easily.

Any Advice for a parent with a child who will probably be in the "gifted" program soon?






ALSO
I will say one thing, the school system here puts more money into the gifted program than they do regular school agenda. We were told in our meetings that they are trained to be free thinkers and allotted an atmosphere that revolves around each individual child.

I just wish they would do this with all children, not just the "gifted ones" Kids learn different ways, and some, like myself, had situations in their early lives that caused them to be delayed in their learning abilities (abuse and malnutrition in my case). But because of this I had to struggle in school all my life, until one day I decided to teach myself my way (as an adult) now I own a web development company and taught myself more than I would have ever learned in college.

reply to post by Roundtree


Yes I was come to think of it. I forgot all about it until you brought it to light.
There were several different ones involving several different school systems.
At one point the option to skip grades was discussed.
We were chosen as a group and seperated from the standard class structure.
There were I.Q. tests, and some others that were odd.
For instance, taking your pencil and tapping it as quickly as you could to create
a cluster of dots on a piece of paper. Then, you would be asked to sharpen the pencil.
The pencil sharpener was located at the very top of a bookcase near the ceiling.
So you would have to figure a way to climb up there and then with great balance,
use both hands to sharpen the pencil without falling.
There were many other interventions along those lines.
Social Engineering type things as well.
I think I may have had my memory wiped a couple of times as
I have forgotten it completely until someone like you reminds me of the fact.

Excellent Thread! These are the type of threads that make ATS great.
The Diamonds in the Rough so to speak.
S&F to you

Best, Wildmanimal


P.S. I think that there were a number of these programs that were started but then cancelled,
or phased out. Mysteriously as they began.

The program I was in was just called GT (gifted and talented). I was tested in 2nd grade and was told I excelled at spatial reasoning and had an advanced vocabulary. I was taken to a separate class room with 4 others after lunch every day and we were given puzzles to solve on paper, sometimes physical puzzles. At the end of the year I was given the option to skip a grade level, I remember this well because they sat me down with a counselor and my parents. I chose to stay with my friends (horrible choice!). One of the kids in that class also stayed behind with me and we stayed close until he moved with his family. I don't remember what happened to the other two.

Yes, Gifted & Talented was what my school called it. I don't really remember why or how I was selected or any specific testing to get into it as I've read in some posts. I do however remember who ran it. She was a strange little woman, one of our teachers, who missed about 1 week out of every month claiming she also worked for NASA. Whether she did or did not, I don't know. She looked almost exactly like the creepy little woman from "Poltergeist" lol. I don't recall doing any really cool field trips and such I've seen others got to go on, kind of a bummer looking back lol. I remember getting to leave class on an almost daily basis from around 2nd-6th grade though, which was nice at the time. I just remember reading alot when we went to our "meetings". And also one year they tried to teach us ballet dancing, which was the point I think I decided to not attend anymore lol. I remember most of the people who were in it with me(small school); nobody doing anything spectacular now-a-days. Definatly none of them are on this website like me lol

I was also in the "Gifted and Talented" program in the UK. I was first sent to these classes and events with one other from my year back when we were in primary school (probably around age 8-9. I'm 22 now). They had children from all over the county from different schools go to a college where we would meet in a hall to do basic tasks in groups and on our own. I remember only one particular task from then and that was we had numerous blocks which we had to construct into a self supporting bridge which was able to hold a set weight. Other times we would just do stuff like drama, art or music and occasionally we would read and write stories.

Then in secondary school after I took my CAT's (Cognitive ability test for those who don't know) I got put into a similar program where we would get taken out of our lessons to do more brain teaser type things and interact with others in group tasks. This was mainly doing problem solving but the lessons were done in an enjoyable way for someone of that age. The two aspects which were always consistent were that you would almost always be in a group situation (or in pairs) and the task would be something creative which required critical thinking and problem solving to find a solution.

It clearly was a way to monitor how we progressed through life after these classes as every year after they ended someone would come to my house and I would have to fill in a questionnaire on what I have been doing, what education I am receiving, how I am mentally and emotionally and numerous other things- basically they just wanted to know where my life was going it would seem. Eventually after probably around 5 years I told them that I didn't want to continue with the yearly meetings anymore and I haven't heard from them since.

Anyway, I can't see anything sinister about the program itself. To me it would seem that it is a way to enhance the ability's of children who excel in certain areas- whether that be something creative or more academic. The follow up questionnaires though appear to be some sort of a large social group study, but for what purpose I do not know

My school had a gifted program....... and i wasent in it lol....... i aint neaver been the sharpest tool in the shed

When I went through school we didn't have special programs

When my eldest son went through he was bored silly. Both he and his brother were competitive although I managed to tone their competitiveness down several levels. They were both in dual year classes. In grade four my eldest would finish his grade four math test in a fraction of the time and then do the grade five test as well. He scored well in both.

It took six months of pushing just to get them both tested. My eldest was in the highly gifted and my second son was gifted.

It took a year and a half of pushing before they would let my eldest skip a grade. It was very frustrating!

I am a counselor and have studied gifted students. I have developed a number of strategies in dealing with the gifted child.

The first is to discover how they learn. Most people learn Factually. That is they learn facts by the rote system. Continuous repetition eventually transfers the material from short term memory to long term memory and they have learnt the material. The more gifted the student the shorter time is required to learn.

Some gifted students learn Conceptually. They need to understand the concepts involved and they have lots of eureka moments. Once they understand how it works nothing else is needed. As an example once they know that multiplication is simply a faster method of addition it all falls into place. Once they understand that 180 * 12 can be broken down into 12*9*2*10 they will do this problem as mental arithmetic.

Next you need to find out what their gifts are. My eldest has visual thinking, pattern recognition and empathy. What I did at home was to make him aware of his talents and then to teach him how to use the skills. Then I taught him not to fall into the traps that such skills can present.

As an example he was complaining (grade 5) that English, 'didn't make sense', and was 'stupid'. What he was subconsciously trying to do was to use his pattern recognition skills on a language. I sat him down and explained why a language can't be patterned. After that he started to like English because he could treat it as an artistic task as opposed to a science task.

I have noticed in reading the whole thread that while IQ was identified in all of these gifted programs, individual gifts were not. That is a great pity.

Finally, if you are going to have gifted programs you also need to insert some EQ lessons so that the gifted can more easily be a part of society. In dealing with the gifted I always remember one thing. A high EQ / average IQ student can not have his IQ increased my any substantial amount. A high IQ / low EQ can always learn decent EQ techniques.

P

Our program was called HAL (High Ability Learners). We would have debate clubs, chess clubs, make projects (one I remembered was creating a telegraph from scratch). Our program was from grades 3-6 if I recall correctly.
I was in the program from 9-12 years old.

I was one of those kids that was about 6 grades above his peers, so I was bored out of my wits. The only reason I passed my classes was the tests, which I aced almost every time. I'd get a 0 for classwork and a 0 for homework, and pass with a D or C for the year because of the test scores.

My theory at the time was that the homework and classwork were to teach me the subject, so since I could prove I had already mastered the subject with my test scores, the homework and classwork were not necessary for me to complete. (Looking back on it now, I wish I had done the work. They wouldn't promote me early to higher grades because I showed no inclination to do the work. Of course, I didn't do the work because it was so far beneath me that it was ludicrous.)

Oh well...no use crying over spilled milk...

reply to post by BomSquad


This all started with the advent of universal education.

In the beginning an upper-class student was taught by a learned man or a brother. They tended to teach small groups and taught at the individual child's pace. If the child was a second or subsequent son that would not inherit and showed an aptitude for the work they would continue to learn and would enter a place of learning or take holy orders and they would eventually end up as a teacher. Teachers were also advisers to the nobility.

Then the industrial revolution occurred and many children were put to work. A rather disgusting part of our history. Eventually we fixed this up and then had lots of children running around doing nothing.

Enter universal education. Enter cheap books via printing presses.

The problem now was that anyone could teach out of a book and teachers were no longer 'learned people.' Since the Government became involved and since the Government is full of idiotic bureaucrats it was one size fits all. Nothing has changed since then.

When we here of Chinese students who at 16 have finished university most westerners wring their hands and whine about missing childhoods and other stupid rhetoric. The real fact is that the Chinese system leaves ours for dead where gifted children are concerned. It is not perfect, but year by year it gets better and better.

P

I am interested to learn how some of you have been classified in the Myers-Briggs personality types. Most people who would be considered "gifted" that I have met have been INTP types like myself.

For those of you unfamiliar with this test more info can be found at the following links. I recall being tested at least three times in school in this manner for one reason or another.

Jung Myers-Briggs test.
Myers-Briggs Wiki article

reply to post by Roundtree


yeah.

top 2-3 of my grade each year, from grade 7- 10 at top school of state; in gifted program for english; op 1, highest you can get in my country in grade 12, etc.

u wudn't know it, wud ya?

;>

altho, i do have to say, that before all that happened, in the younger grades i think my parents thought i might have been slightly retarded...

reply to post by NihilistSanta


Close INTJ

P

reply to post by NihilistSanta


I'm INFJ so I am unsure if there is a correlation but then again i don't know much about the test's meanings really

The most common type to test in the gifted range are INTP ENTP INFJ INFP and INTJ.

G&T is what they called it when I was in High School in the early '90s.

College Preparatory classes were denoted as "Level 3" on your report card.

Excelled or Gifted & Talented were denoted as "Levels 4 & 5", respectively.

My 7-year-old daughter is also in the program at her school. But the way they do it there is a 2-day-a-week class on Tuesdays & Thursdays. They are taken from their regular class for a few hours on those days to participate in cognitive exercises.
No weekly cognitive assessments were made when I was in High School. You just took classes that were the equivalent of being a few grades above the one you were actually in.

Originally posted by rapunzel222
altho, i do have to say, that before all that happened, in the younger grades i think my parents thought i might have been slightly retarded...

ha ha, funny
although I recall hearing that being said about Einstein as well

Originally posted by NihilistSanta
I am interested to learn how some of you have been classified in the Myers-Briggs personality types. Most people who would be considered "gifted" that I have met have been INTP types like myself.

For those of you unfamiliar with this test more info can be found at the following links. I recall being tested at least three times in school in this manner for one reason or another.

Jung Myers-Briggs test.
Myers-Briggs Wiki article

I'm an ENFJ, "the teacher" & "idealist"

reply to post by NihilistSanta


Guilty as charged on the INTP.